My World of Food and Travel

And now to continue with my Malaysia trip. June seems so far behind now, when I had visited Kuala Lumpur. Like I had written earlier, I opted to see the city using the services of the HOHO bus – or the Hop On Hop Off tourist bus. I had earmarked a few places among the 26 options offered, preferring to drive through the other tourist spots. There was an audio guide on the bus that detailed the history behind each place of interest that we passed by. I reckoned I was not missing much by skipping the other sites.  Besides, I wanted to visit only those places that held my interest. HOHO was the perfect solution for discerning travellers like me. After having my fill of joy with the winged creatures in KL Butterfly Park , I moved on towards some more winged beings – the birds at KL Bird Park, which lay a short distance away from the Butterfly Park in the Lake Garden area. It is home to more than 3,000 birds, belonging to approximately 200 local and foreign species, and remai...

And I am back after a long, long hiatus! A lot happened in my real world and just let me say here that I am happy to be alive! Let’s hope those days don’t come back to haunt me again.  On that happy note, let’s continue our Kuala Lumpur series, shall we? Now, I had said this before and I will say this again – one of my main objectives in KL was to savour the region’s delightful cuisine. I already knew some of the famous dishes and places to dine, browsing through various food channels and articles on the net. Or so I thought. Because when I landed in KL, my memory bank emptied itself and suddenly I did not know what to eat and where to eat.  My hotel was located quite close to the twin towers and on the first day I roamed around aimlessly in search of food as I did not want to have the hotel buffet. I came across a curry house on the same street as my hotel but felt completely lost when it came to ordering. I observed the others and was quite astounded to see the amoun...

My Kuala Lumpur trip was a roller coaster ride –evenings I would be traipsing with the Bollywood stars but by day I would be an explorer. I would don my explorer’s hat (invisible to the eye), sling my camera around my neck and say HOHO! Yes, my mode of travel would be the HOHO bus – or as it is known in full – the Hop On Hop Off tourist bus.  One of my ‘hop off’ destinations was the beautiful Kuala Lumpur Butterfly Park. It is located in the picturesque Lake Gardens area, touted to be the lungs of the city, owing to its lush green cover. It took me a minute to figure out the way to the park since most of the signage there pointed to the more famous bird park in the same area. I did see a board saying Taman Rama-Rama but I had no idea that it meant the butterfly park. A few minutes’ walk and I found myself at the gate of the park. A funny thing happened at the ticket counter. The entrance fee for foreigners were higher at 22 RM (I think) and as I handed out the amount to ...

My first international trip to Kuala Lumpur will always be special, especially since there was a national element – something that I am quite passionate about. Think movies, Bollywood, stars, premiere shows…. IIFA Awards! *drum roll* Like every other Indian, I, too, am a starry-eyed movie goer. For years, my address in Mumbai was “Amitabh Bachchan ke bungalow ke peeche” (I stay behind Amitabh Bachchan’s bungalow). Once, my colleague who was visiting from Delhi heard me telling the same to the autorickshaw guy and had sneered, “Oh please, no need to show off to me just because you are from Mumbai and I am from Delhi.” So, let me take the chance here and tell you that for five years I used to live in Juhu, bang opposite Hrithik Roshan’s apartment and the adjacent bungalows included those of Hema Malini’s, Yash Chopra’s and Dharmendra’s (besides AB’s three bungalows) and a little way off were the residences of Anupam Kher, Sanjay Khan, Jeetendra and other stars from the golden bygon...